Six years ago, Luke Harris traveled to Brazil for an international judo tournament. He had participated in the sport since he was 8 years old, and it had been his passion, although he had started paying more attention to mixed-martial-arts.

Before he left, Harris tried to augment his judo by dabbling in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, specifically training in the areas where judo was weak.

He did that work at the Brazilian Top Team location in Canada, where Harris grew up. When in Brazil, he connected with the BTT team there.

His sporting interests then changed almost immediately.

“The rest of the (judo) team came home, and I stayed to train,” Harris told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) this week from the Hayabusa Training Centre he helped found. “I clearly remember the conversation when one of the guys there said, ‘Why don’t you give fighting a try?'”

Harris has, and MMA has since come to envelop his life. Mixing business interests in the training center and apparel and equipment company Hayabusa Fightwear, Harris has also advanced to a 6-1 start to his professional MMA career.

The 34-year-old native and resident of Alberta, Canada, will try to improve that record on Saturday with a main card bout against Elliott Duff at Aggression MMA 9 in Edmonton. He will precede the co-main events of Ryan Ford vs. Ricky Goodall and Victor Valimaki vs. Tim Chemelli with a challenge he hopes can help him continue advancing to higher levels.

Outside of fighting, Harris has earned two degrees, including a Masters degree in landscape architecture, but the MMA business interests caused him to put that training aside. In his career, he has earned the King of the Cage middleweight belt and won six straight (although his last fight was a no contest because, seriously, the ring broke).

With several UFC fighters working in his gym, Harris has seen up close what it takes to compete at the highest level. He’s hoping to continue his own climb.

“I’ve built a career and a livelihood around this, and it’s the field I want to work in,” Harris said. “I’m one of the lucky guys who is doing exactly what he wants in his life.”

Judo first

Growing up in Canada, the stereotype was playing hockey.

“Anything else,” Harris said, “is a deviation of the norm.”

Consider Harris a deviant. By age 8, his parents started him in judo training because they had their own interest in the sport. He enjoyed it from the beginning, and it became his main activity for the next two decades or so.

About two to three nights a week after school, Harris was in the gym preparing for tournaments that would eventually advance to the national and international level. It was training that, although he didn’t know it at the time, was preparing him for another future career.

“It was a lot of driving and a lot of weekends,” Harris said. “There were training camps, tournaments, something every weekend.”

While mixing in his education in Canada and then at Penn State, Harris continued to train. He spent three months living in Japan, and he competed internationally. He was once third in the Canadian nationals as well as a provincial champion.

But then MMA started creeping into his life with early notice of the sport on television and on tapes. He thought the training could help augment his judo, so he worked on Brazilian jiu-jitsu and connected with the school in Brazil that he visited.

Once he made that visit, Harris turned his life almost completely to MMA.

Fighter and businessman

When he returned from his MMA-inspiring trip to Brazil, Harris trained for about three more months and decided to take a fight.

He was used to judo, where certain etiquette and tradition are followed. He thought it would be mostly the same in the new sport, but his first fight provided a lesson.

“I put my hand out to touch gloves and got clocked,” he said. “Judo was very respectful – walk up, bow, go where the ref tells you to go. This was different.”

But once he learned that, he improved quickly. Beginning in November 2007, he won six straight, all in the first round. None of his fights, in fact, have made it past the opening frame.

Within three fights, he was a King of the Cage champion. He last won in December 2010, scoring each of his six straight wins by submission.

His last fight, in June 2011, might’ve been his seventh straight win, but an unusual action stopped it.

“We fought about three minutes and one of the boards in the middle of the cage gave way,” Harris said with a laugh. “I’ve never seen that. They tried to fix it, and we waited about five minutes, but they called it off.”

So Harris went back to training and operating his businesses. He started Hayabusa Fightwear with three good friends around 2007 in hoping to provide high-quality equipment. They sponsor UFC fighters, and he sees other successful fighters up close at his gym.

Outside of the eight classes he teaches, Harris has also found time for his own training while hoping to continue his quick-strike success.

“There’s a very good vibe in our gym, and I think we’re all helping each other get better,” Harris said. “I’ve been fortunate to be around good people, which has helped me make this my life.”

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